"wished to manipulate the 1972 election"? Rather odd choice of words. I disagree with the apparent conclusion you want us to reach concerning CREEP and its impact on the general election and the democratic nomination for President. The idea that CREEP helped influence the selection of McGovern as the Dem nomonee is pure conspiritorial nonsense.
Nixon was reelected overwhelmingly because the public supported his policies. In the ’68 campaign, Nixon favored a “negative income tax,” which became the earned income tax credit and an expansion of the welfare programs begun during the Great Society, creation of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) with the Clean Air Act, dramatic increases in social service spending, and interventionist economic policies ranging from dollar devaluation to wage and price controls. During his presidency, many of these proposals became law, particularly those that could be accomplished without Congressional approval.
McGovern’s platform was unapologetically liberal: he campaigned on an immediate end to the Vietnam War, socialized medicine, and a guaranteed national minimum income. The radicalism of the 1972 Democratic platform was caused partly by a sense inside the party that its defeat in 1968 was caused by a failure to articulate adequately the differences between the Democrats’ agenda and that of then-candidate Nixon.
I am reading Richard Reeves' book on Nixon as we speak. Nixon didn't really care a whit about domestic policy. Once he told Haldeman that he didn't read everything he signed. He had to be almost literally forced to meet with his domestic policy advisors.
Dear kabar,
Once upon a time, I knew all this stuff by memory. I was a teenager when all this occurred, and I absorbed it all like a sponge. I stayed home from school, feigning illness, to watch the Senate Select Committee hearings, and later, I watched the House Judiciary Committee impeachement hearings. However, the passage of time has dimmed (my) memory (at least). I'd have to go research what I once knew by heart.
But I remember a few salient details. I remember that the plumbers started out after Mr. Nixon felt that the ordinary channels for finding leakers had failed. I remember that Mr. Nixon's folks ran a poll prior to the opening of the 1972 presidential election season which showed rather competitive races against most of the possible Democrat nominees.
I won't tell you that Mr. Nixon's folks successfully got Sen. McGovern nominated. I'm not sure the dirty tricks really had that much effect. That isn't to say the attempt wasn't made.
I also don't think that Mr. Nixon's minions did anything different than previous presidents.
But some of the stuff that occurred under his auspices, including third-rate burglaries, and some of the stuff that he countenanced, including the cover-up of third-rate burglaries, were felonies.
And Republicans don't think that presidents should be felons.
Remember, as well, when wage and price controls went on, there was a reason for that. A year and a half or so out from the election, the November landslide didn't look so certain.
sitetest
Maybe Nixon's paranoia centered around a possible run by Teddy Kennedy. But it seems to me that Teddy, at the time, was simply the idiot brother of JFK & RFK. A political lightweight (kinda like his nephew, Patrick, is right now). He was certainly not the "Lion of the Senate" as the Left currently portrays him. OTOH, Nixon did have a fear of the Kennedy political machine, so I guess it's plausible.
But the one thing he did that chapped my buns was instituting the 55 MPH nationwide. ARRRRRGGGGHHHH!!!